Hideaway Painting

Statement/Bio From 1990 to the present, Jan Lhormer has exhibited her abstract oil paintings at The Painting Center New York City, The Trustman Gallery at Simmons College, Boston, The Cape Cod Museum of Art,  The De Cordova Museum Corporate Loan Program, Lincoln, Ma., The Reynolds Ryan Gallery, New Orleans, La.  and The Mendelson Gallery, Pittsburgh. Pa. Jan Lhormer earned a BFA in 1988 and a MFA in 1990 in Painting from The Boston University School of Visual Arts. She received a bachelor’s degree in Art History from Colorado College in 1983. Her work has been reviewed by The Boston Globe and featured in Cape Cod Life Arts Edition and Cape Arts Review Magazine.  Currently, Ms. Lhormer is an adjunct faculty member in the art department at Bridgewater State University.    My paintings explore the relationship between nature and abstraction, using color to build structure and substance. The landscape motifs combine elements from romantic historic landscape paintings, scientific matter, and the pure, rich material qualities of paint. I layer marks, tones, and textures with a choreographed palette to echo nature's visceral and variable qualities. The "Garden Series" involves vines, buds, and lush botanical forms which appear and then fade under layers of expressive brush stroke.  Surrounded by a backyard garden and natural beauty of Cape Cod, I am inspired by the ever-changing, regenerative and kinetic qualities of landscape. The "Ocean Series" reflect animated flora/fauna from nearby coastal life, where ethereal light and open space contrast the frenetic activity of the garden pieces. In several works, pictorial space is defined by planes of earth and sky or a horizon line which reveals then obscures underlying areas of gestural forms. in other works, the fixed horizon disappears, adding a disorienting effect to the canvasses. A range of hues not typically seen in nature further expands the possibilities of abstraction. Through these invented images, I hope to convey the magic and resilience of our fragile environment.